Troy, N.Y. — Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute officials have announced that the Institute’s faculty governance structure will be reviewed and modified in order to strengthen the role of tenured and tenure-track faculty members in the faculty governance process.

The review plan was announced Aug. 7 in a message from Provost Robert E. Palazzo to the faculty, including a memo to the president recommending the faculty governance review and an approach to conduct such a review. It is being conducted in response to a December 2006 directive by the Board of Trustees restating its definition of the faculty for governance purposes — limiting that definition to tenured and tenure-track faculty — and requesting modifications to the Faculty Senate constitution.

“A strong university must have strong and effective faculty governance to assure the progress of the faculty and the Institute as a whole, and to work and advocate on behalf of the faculty and the Institute,” President Shirley Ann Jackson said. “The continued development of the strength of the faculty and the academic stature of the Institute require it.”

Samuel Heffner, chairman of Rensselaer Board of Trustees, endorsed the review approach. “This process is intended to engender the greatest possible participation in university governance by the tenured and tenure-track faculty, in accordance with the wishes of the Board of Trustees,” he said. “This is an opportunity to move Rensselaer to a new phase in its development as a major research university. I applaud the governance review led by the provost under the oversight of the president.”

Palazzo recommended a two-stage process: a state of transitional faculty governance and a review process leading to recommended changes in faculty governance, and an associated new or revised constitution, as appropriate. During the transitional period, the terms of pre-existing (2006-07 academic year) members of key faculty advisory groups — including the Faculty Committee on Promotion and Tenure (FCPT) — will be extended while the governance review proceeds, in order to assure the process of faculty review and recommendations on promotion and tenure decisions and other academic matters.

Palazzo said the extension of pre-existing committee memberships was made necessary as a result of the spring 2007 Faculty Senate election. The annual election includes the selection of new FCPT and other important committee members, but last spring it “provided opportunities for voting by members of the community other than tenured and tenure-track faculty,” in accordance with the existing Faculty Senate constitution, for which the Board of Trustees requested changes in order to meet its directives regarding the definition of faculty, Palazzo said.  If ineligible members — those not meeting the December 2006 Board of Trustees definition — voted, he added, “this situation compromises an important faculty advisory process regarding review and recommendations on promotion and tenure to the Provost,” and thus “immediate action is necessary to allow for and ensure legitimacy” of faculty recommendation on upcoming promotion and tenure decisions.

Early in the transitional period, members of a Faculty Governance Review Committee (FGRC) will be appointed by the president on the basis of recommendations by the provost in consultation with the academic deans and the tenured and tenure-track faculty. The group will have a five-step charge: 

• Consider faculty governance in its totality.
• Develop a plan for faculty governance to conform to the faculty definition established by the Board of Trustees, to consider the perspectives of all faculty categories, and to work constructively with the administration.
• Develop a plan for transition from the current faculty governance structure to a revised one, as appropriate.
• Prepare recommendations for a new constitution for faculty governance, or modification of the existing constitution, as necessary.
• Recommend appropriate mechanisms for the launch of a new faculty governance structure. 

Once the FGRC completes its recommendations, they will be reviewed by the tenured, tenure-track, and other instructional faculty, and a final document will be sent for approval by a quorum of the tenured and tenure-track faculty. That document then will be forwarded to the president for review, comment, decision, and subsequent transmission to the Board of Trustees for final decision.

“This approach most appropriately ensures that our recruitment, retention, and promotion efforts will be secure while Rensselaer aligns its governance with the directives of the Board of Trustees, and with the best practices of private research universities nationally,” Palazzo said.

“Through this process, we will reaffirm the value of faculty tenure as an important basis for establishing and maintaining the academic standards of Rensselaer, and for continuing to build our academic stature,” Jackson said. “I am confident that we will emerge from this thoughtful deliberation as a stronger and more globally competitive research university.”

Contact: William N. Walker
Phone: (518) 276-6531
E-mail: walkew2@rpi.edu